Twisted
by Gracious Anne
Summary: Dorothy's ruby slippers have never left her feet since she was 13. Dorothy considers this curse, her lot in life, her feet deformed beyond repair. But when Toto disappears,& old enemies return, Dorothy returns to Oz to make her last stand.
1. Dust

Toto was dead. Or just about, Dorothy thought. Her hands shook clutching the steering wheel of the truck. The Kansas state line and state highways signs flashed in the headlights. She had waited by the side of the road and called him until her feet hurt and her voice hoarse. Toto had jumped out of the truck while they stopped at a side road leading up to the northern state line. Still, she could have made it all up. Her mind had always played tricks on her, ever since she was a little girl.

Toto could be home sitting on the porch, waiting for her. But the crumpled bag of dog food for Toto and a hamper of washed clothes was in the back seat, making weird crumpling sounds when the truck hit a pot hole as she sped back home. She didn't know how long those things had been back there. Maybe an hour, maybe she put them there last week. She couldn't remember when she had made the plans to get out of Kansas.

Dorothy drove home, got out of the truck, and slammed the truck door behind her. Although she wished and prayed that she would see him again, his eyes twinkling in under the electric porch light, Toto was not home.

She went inside and slumped in a chair, not bothering to turn on a light, and stared at her shoes. Even in the dim light, they still sparkled.

Dorothy had grown old, but the slippers had never faded, never tarnished, and never had gotten so much as a speck of dust on them. Her brown braids were now a graying bun, those young hands which had grasped the witch's broom could hardly grasp much now, but the shoes remained the same. No one could explain why or how those shoes stayed on her feet all those years, or Toto's unnatural long life.

Toto had died the last week, or at least that's what Dorothy thought as she folded the laundry from the hamper.. She no longer could imagine his fluffy little old body, only his eyes. Those sad brown eyes did nothing but stare mindlessly back at Dorothy in her imagination. Blind eyes. Blinded by those blasted shoes. She remembered for moment that she had tried to go on without Toto. That she had tried to cross the border. But as she neared the border of Kansas foot by foot in her truck, her feet had burned like fire. She only had enough strength to fight the pain, stop the truck and turn around. Maybe it had been the first time she had tried, maybe the fiftieth, she could not remember exactly, but it had always been the same. The shoes were cursed to send her home and keep her home.

A month after Uncle Henry had died, Dorothy had moved as far north inside Kansas as she dared. She had once thought about going south, but she did not know whether she would like the busy city; people laughed at her shoes in town as it was. Her granddaughter Doritta had sent a nice picture a rather happy animated Toto for her to put up on the fridge, a few years ago. had been seven at the time. Doritta hated those visits with her grandmother now. Dorothy saw it in her eyes; saw her granddaughter scan the farmland for an ounce of color. For anything remotely interesting in that barren farmland. Except for the glittery slippers, there was none. The earth was grey, and so was the house, a dull lifeless grey where the sun had burnt the grass, and the crops, peeling the paint and life off everything in sight. She clicked her tongue at her and asked her to move closer to her and her mother, that is was not good for her to be alone after Grandpa died. But Dorothy would have none of it.

"It's too far west." Dorothy had said.

"Why? What's wrong with west?"

Dorothy had stared blindly down at her shoes.

"I like north Kansas. It feels good. It's clean."

"But it's greener in the west."

"Does it rain more?"

A bad question to ask a seven year old, Dorothy thought, but maybe the girl watched the rain outside the windows, or even watched the weather on the television.

Doritta looked sideways out the window at the forlorn Toto sitting on the porch with her mother. She bit her lip. Still, staring she answered:

"Maybe, they use sprinklers."

Dorothy had watched with satisfaction as a thunderstorm had built up and rolled across the sky a few hours later. Out in the evening dusk, the land swirled with dust and death.

"Do they have thunderstorms like these in the west?" she had asked. No reply. Her grand-daughter was staring at the slippers again.

"Grandma," her daughter had said slowly. "I told you those shoes are too small. You shouldn't wear them anymore."

Dorothy folded her arms across her chest and looked resolute. "They fit fine." She tried to wiggle her toes in them to prove the point, but they were bunched up against the toebox.  
Later that night however, Dorothy had been caught practically oiling her feet with olive oil and butter, if you could call them feet anymore, trying to get the shoes off.

Her daughter sumized that the toes were probably curled in and under at strange angles, bones arched. The skin around the edges of shoe looked unnaturally pale, and was almost a different color. Dorritta thought they looked green. She and her mother had tried get them off, but the shoes were as hot as burning embers. Dorothy sat up half the night with a bag of frozen corn from the freezer on top of her jeweled feet, trying to ease the pain.

The next morning her daughter and Doritta left. The wind blew east and the storm clouds rolled past her house, without a drop landing in the rain bucket under the eaves of the porch.

In the dry heat of the night, Dorothy had strange dreams; instead of her usual void of color, dry visions in sepia and gray, she dreamt in various shades of red and blue. Toto would visit there her sometimes, his eyes two black glowing beads.

Her feet hurt in the morning, squeezed inside those slippers. They wouldn't budge. Her feet ached day and night, and their unnatural glow annoyed her. The postman stopped joking about them. Now he just handed her the mail without a single word. She slept with her feet propped up on a pillow.

The air baked the land day after day, the sky a glorious unwashed blue. The drought and the heat and the undulated sunlight seemed to spread across the country, carrying whispers of strange stories and memories back to Dorothy. None of them stood out in particular but meshed together in a strange way to convince Dorothy that the dream when she was a child, might be true. The shoes were just shoes after all, glitter all they might and kept her feet tight inside them, but her dreams, that was a different matter. The Land of Oz might not just exist in her dreams.

Then the rains came, violent and thrashing against the side of the house. Pounding the dirt and land into mud. Dorothy put out a bucket to catch the fresh water, to count the inches and the years the drought and the sun had battered and sucked from her. She would remember when Toto ran away, she would find a way to get the shoes off her feet, and she drive out of Kansas.

Dorothy dragged in a full rain bucket the next morning. She felt almost if she could dance.

As the sun set and the crows left their pestering station at the scarecrow in the yard, Dorothy felt restless. Her feet burned tight inside her shoes, but she didn't care. They felt like they were finally cracking, peeling from her feet. She had wanted to travel the world when she was younger, she had wanted to see towers and spirals as grand as the Emerald City, see the mighty rivers of the world, and watch the rain fall on the Amazon.

It was only her imagination, all these stories. It had to be. She decided that tomorrow, she would drive to her daughter's house in the west and then, perhaps drive to California, or Oklahoma. The ruby slippers were only a trick of the light, not something burning, magical, or cursed.

Dorothy sat down by the fireplace, already hissing with a new green log on the fire. The air was chilly tonight. The old woman did not notice the thunderclouds rolling in. Dorothy fell asleep in her chair, her jeweled feet propped up on a stool. It wasn't until a bolt of lightening struck close by that she woke with a start.

She thought she heard something close the front door. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dying ember light of the fire. At first all she saw was blacks and dark blues and bits of grey, but slowly she saw lighter colors, the orange embers, the slippers glinting on her feet, a slip of pink.

Pink?

Dorothy leaned forward and peered into the darkest corner. In her mind she envisioned the glittery pinks and golds that the Witch of the North wore so long ago. Any second, Glinda would step out of the darkness and tell Dorothy how to take the slippers off, as quick as you please, and then go off describing Oz in excruciating detail.

Then she saw it: a pink glove, sharp and crystal clear. It was Glinda.

Dorothy thought she heard a laugh, high and tinkling like a water fountain, but then she saw the form shift from the darkness and the colors sprang out like ghosts: blacks, deep purples and greens like the skins of lizards, or dragons. The pink gloves were cast off, revealing green skin, although no longer dry and papery, but moist and whole. Green hands clasped and unclasped together, folding finally around the handle of a large umbrella.

"Hello Dorothy," said the Witch. She smiled then, showing a bit of her teeth between blackened lips.

Dorothy clutched the arms of her chair, and bit back a cry. She shut her eyes. It could not be real. It had all been a dream. It had to be. She wished bitterly she could be anywhere else. Not in this nightmare.  
Her eyes still shut, she whispered to the dream:

"You're dead. You melted. You're dead."

"Well," said the Witch slowly, "we can't have everything can we?"

Dorothy opened her eyes and looked at the very real, very alive form of her once-dead enemy. She unglued her arms from the chair and put them in her lap. She eyed the bucket of rainwater sitting next to the fireplace.

A great bolt of lightning hit the fields and shot white light through the house for a split second. The Witch took another step towards Dorothy, set her umbrella on the mantle and then turned aside to pick up the bucket of rainwater. Dorothy cringed. The Witch held it for a moment in both arms and stared down into it, seeming to judge her reflection in its depths. She doused the last of the fire with it, carefully, as if she were watering a precious rosebush.

"There now," The Witch said pleasantly as a bit of smoke rose from the watery mess.  
She then swooped up her umbrella and jabbed the end into the watery ashes. Dry hot flames shot up instantly filling the room with red light. Dorothy felt its heat on her face. Her feet blistered inside her shoes.

She looked back from the fire to the Witch, and saw her face for the first time. She had not aged. There were no new wrinkles, no grey hairs streaking her brown hair. She still wore that pointy tipped hat, its brim overshadowing her green face, and an emerald green ribbon wrapped around it, its ends trailing down her back. But her eyes, brown like chocolate and mud and speckled with yellow, were infinitely older as if all the cares of world had been set upon her.

The Witch took another step towards her as she peered down at her. Dorothy wondered how she did not seem to mind the high choker collar, its lace almost touching her throat. She still wore the black dress from her childhood dream, The blacks of mourning, Dorothy thought. She then remembered she had never seen the Witch before the house dropped on her sister; before her sister had died. She wondered then if the Witch ever wore anything colorful before her sister's accidental death.

The Witch shot a disgusted glance at the pink gloves on the floor and picked them up and threw them into the fire. The Witch leaned over Dorothy's feet on the stool. Dorothy quickly picked her feet off the stool and hid them beneath her dress. She looked back at the fire, now suddenly burning an unexpected light purple.

"Where's Glinda?" she whispered.

The Witch followed her gaze and said in a matter of fact voice: "She's dead."

The Witch must have seen the look on Dorothy's face because she said quickly,

"Not me."

"Then how-"

"Oh, no one knows exactly. The Emerald City was never the same after the Wizard went up in that ridiculous balloon. Looks like a rotting cabbage now. Needs a new coat of paint. Maybe she died of shock from the sight. Maybe that glorious bubble finally collapsed on her and she fell from the sky. Who knows."

Dorothy thought she heard rain tapping on the roof. It comforted her for a moment. But then she saw the Witch staring at the toes of her shoes and the glimmer of hope faded inside her. She saw the same look of want and greed and revenge on the Witch's face as she had seen all those years before.

"Funny things shoes," The Witch said leaning on her umbrella, "the prettiest always hurt the most, while the ugliest, well"—she inclined her head at her own brown boots, now caked in Kansas dust, jutted out from underneath the black dress—"they seem to last the longest."

The Witch then lifted her head and stood straight as rod and looked down at Dorothy, a strange and twisted light in her eyes.

"Now," she said, quietly, almost in a whisper, "Dorothy Gale, it's time to give me back my shoes!"

Dorothy squared her shoulders, and took a shaky breath.

"They are not yours to take. They never were. You can't have them."

A strange smile took hold of the Witch's mouth.

"I'll take them then!"

The Witch lunged at her then with a growl, dropping her umbrella.

Dorothy cried out and struggled to escape as the Witch grabbed her feet and started to chant, but the Witch was too strong. Her hands were hot and dry and gripped Dorothy like pincers.

Dorothy shut her eyes again, suddenly blinded by fiery red light. She wished the shoes that had gotten her from Oz to Kansas would take her faraway now, like they had when she was a little girl. But no matter how much she had wanted to run away, the shoes that she thought would take her to far distant countries, to jungles and rivers and cities and deserts had only led her back home in the end.

Dorothy heard herself starting to sobb and say she was sorry, asking the Witch to let her go, that she was sorry about her sister, about killing her, it was all an accident and she had been just a little girl. She heard the Witch hiss almost in her ear, "Too late, too late."

Then she heard another noise, on the roof, and realized there would be no rain. No rain in Kansas that night. The sound she heard wasn't rain, but feet, little feet, she thought, with claws. Something screamed then, something not human. She could almost imagine their wings, their hideous bat wings and their ugly faces jeering at her as they did in that little prison cell so long ago. She knew then there monkeys on the roof, not rain. They were ready and waiting to spring upon her and carry her off to Oz if the Witch's spells did not work.

Her feet felt as if they were melting inside an oven, and she screamed for water as the Witch continued to shout. A vengeful red light shimmered off the shoes burning Dorothy's eyes. Dorothy heard then another sound, the sound of a dog barking. Only one dog barked at the Witch. Toto had come home. Blind as he was by those slippers, maybe he could save her. After all, he had faced a lion and not run away.

*If you have enjoyed this chapter, please let me know :)*


	2. Fire

There was a burst of light, and Dorothy thought her feet had melted into the floor. She could hear the Witch cursing and scratching at her ankles with her long fingernails, and Toto, sweet Toto, barking loudly at her. That brief distraction for the Witch gave Dorothy a moment of clarity. She was not dead yet. She had not died as a little girl lost in a fairy tale land and she did not need to die now. What would her daughter and her granddaughter think of her then, when she gave trying to undo the curse that kept her in north Kansas, and die, her life wrought with nothing but dust and chicken feathers.

Dorothy summoned her courage and swung a closed fist, blindly, at the Witch. Her hand hit dry crack skin, the Witch's cheek, and she knew she had swung with more strength then either of them were expecting. Dorothy opened her eyes and saw that the Witch had reeled back, thrown off balance. She stumbled into the mantle, but quick hands caught up the broom and Dorothy's moment of victory had passed. Dorothy leapt up out of her chair as quickly as an old woman could and limped towards the front door. Toto barked even louder and Dorothy's heart pitter-pattered, as she glanced back. He was staring at the Witch. He was not simply smelling her and sensing her rage. He could see her. Toto could see the Witch. His sight had come back with him.

"Thank you Oz," She whispered to her dream world. He _must_ have leapt back into Oz when he ran from her at the train tracks. She began to limp down the porch steps heading towards the beat up truck. Toto would follow soon as she was safe down the road.

But then, she felt a hand on her shoulder, hot as coals, and she was twisted round back towards the crumbling house, into the grasp of the Witch. Dorothy could not think of anything else to do. She spat in the Witch's face. A low growl emitted from that unholy throat. The Witch squeezed her shoulders tighter. Dorothy heard a sickening noise behind the Witch. A monkey, probably the leader of the host of blue, winged demons, had dropped onto the porch steps, blocking Toto's way. More joined him in seconds.

"Secure the mutt," said the Witch, glancing over her shoulder.

Dorothy took the opportunity to kick the woman in the shin. The Witch hissed, and they both stumbled, one grasping for higher ground, the other for escape. Dorothy twisted out of the Witch's hands the next second, but fell as the Witch grabbed her ankle, groaning in pain as her hand brushed rubies. She chanted the spell once more underneath her breath as she tugged at Dorothy, holding her left hand and ankle pinned to the ground. Dorothy struggled, panting, gravel grounding into her back. The Witch moved swiftly toward her face, hands outstretched. Dorothy caught them and pushed back, trying to get her legs in a position to kick the Witch away from her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Dorothy could see Toto in the blue hands of a monkey, held tight. More monkeys were coming and joining the crowd. The monkeys were oddly curious, watching their mistress struggle to kill a single woman. To be sure, the Witch had the upper hand, but not with Dorothy's permission.

In split moment, the Witch saw her tiny window of opportunity and pounced like cat through it to grasp Dorothy's neck. Dorothy began to writhe beneath her as she clutched her captor's arms, pinched, and pulled, but the Witch would not relent. If the Witch could not have her prize through her magic then she would kill Dorothy now and not later to get it. Dorothy's eyes watered and she coughed and choked. She kicked uselessly while the Witch squeezed her throat, rage of forty years of waiting and desiring in her eyes. Dorothy vision filled with yellow stars and pricks of light, as she grew dizzy from lack of air. She thought this might be the end, a better end than letting the Witch take what she wanted without a fight.

Who would find her body she wondered. Where would they bury her? Next to the empty graves of her parents, or next to her dead aunt and uncle? When she felt the life slowly stopping up instead her lungs, her heart screaming, she looked into the Witch's eyes and was determined that she would make the Witch wish she had never killed her. She would not die, not entirely. She would haunt the edges of Oz until a breeze blew her through the boundaries and she would haunt the Witch until she died of terror.

At that moment the Witch suddenly stopped. She stood up in one sharp moment.

"My broom!" she cried, striding towards the crowd of monkeys.

Coughing, her throat raw, Dorothy rolled onto her stomach to see what had made the Witch relent her prize and revenge. Dorothy took deep breaths inhaling dirt and gravel dust. She coughed again and looked up.

Just down the road, a man was on fire. He was marching up the driveway now, alone, smoke rising from his head and yet Dorothy could see the fire was not consuming him. It was a false fire, a trick.

Dorothy knew only one man who could both burn and smoke at once and not die.

The Scarecrow.

A/N Comments and questions are always welcome.


	3. Copper

Tin

Dorothy crawled towards the rusted truck, half-heartedly, mesmerized by the burning wonder striding up the gravel driveway. She heard the Witch shriek at her followers to water the Scarecrow down and secure him. The monkeys rushed at him. He came on. Dorothy could not see his face. She had never seen him like this, a burning knight, courageous and wholly other. It was a wonder the fire department had not been called yet. Brush fires destroyed crops, homes, and once even an entire town. Old cronies would be watchful for such glints of flame and smoke on the horizon. It worried her that she could see his face in all the smoke. She worried that it might not be her scarecrow that perhaps it was another risen up in his place after all these years. Oz was extraordinarily resourceful in resurrection.

Dorothy reached the truck, forgotten by the Witch. She clung to the door handle. Her throat ached and her hands shook from exertion of her scuffle with the Witch. After a long moment, she found the strength to heft herself up in to the vehicle and sat there, staring blindly at the scene before her.

She could still hear the Witch screaming at monkeys though muffled through the windshield. Through the dusted pane she watched as the monkeys flew to and fro from her house to the still approaching man. Cups and bowls from her cabinets filled with water, or even milk, were launched at the still burning scarecrow. After a few minutes of this, the monkeys began to drop the dishes on the scarecrow, filled with whatever liquid they could find. The scarecrow looked like a trick birthday candle now, flickering off and on as the milk and water-laden dishes hit him from all sides. He threw his hands up over his head to protect himself.

Dorothy fumbled in her pockets for the keys to truck. The witch now regarded them all silently, arms crossed. Dorothy knew she was brewing a spell. She had seen that look fifty years before as she ran through apple trees throwing their rotting fruit at her head. Dorothy knew if she waited that the Witch would cast spell. And there was Toto to think of, still in the paws of the Witch's henchman.

Dorothy turned the key in the ignition and prayed that the engine would start smoothly and quietly. The engine rumbled to life like thunder as she twisted the key an inch. She shot into action. The Witch was a witch, but Dorothy had time and surprise on her side. The Witch had forgotten her broom on the steps, watching the Scarecrow fend off her minions. Dorothy pressed on the gas pedal giving the Witch a split second warning. The Witch looked in her direction her eyes narrowed, then widened. She began to turn on her heel, towards the porch steps her cloak fluttering behind her, but Dorothy was already driving after her. The Witch ran. She jumped up on the porch steps and swooped up her broom with a regal flourish. In a moment, she was gone a black speck on the horizon. She knew that she could not outrun an automobile. Her monkeys trialed after her like wayward pigeons. Toto was in the leader's arms. Dorothy figured the Witch would use her dog as a bargaining chip.

Dorothy turned the key in the ignition again, turning off the engine hopelessly, and sank back into the leather seat. Her feet were throbbing again. The scarecrow walked slowly towards her in the rearview mirror, his fire extinguished. She opened the truck door and nearly fell out. The Scarecrow ran to help her up. Thick hands covered by rough gloves caught her. She looked up and smiled bravely into the Scarecrow's face. He grinned back.

"Hello Dorothy," he said, quietly, "it's been a long time."

"Yes, it has," Dorothy replied. She imagined that he thought her too old and careworn, so unlike the young girl she used to be. She steadied herself against the bed of the truck leaning against it.

The Scarecrow studied the sky a moment.

"It's going to rain soon," he said, tipping his hat back on his head. "That is really why she ran."

"Still doesn't like water?" Dorothy remarked.

"No, she doesn't." The Scarecrow stared at the ruby slippers.

" Dorothy," he said softly, as if he didn't want to hurt her feeling, "Dorothy have you been wearing those shoes all this time?" Blue eyes searched her face.

"Yes, they won't come off." She stamped on one of the back heels to demonstrate.

"That must hurt," the straw man said.

"Oh really?" Dorothy said, trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, if you haven't noticed, I've been a bit busy." He tossed a large coin in the air and showing to her. It was green like a rusted copper.

"An invention of the Wizard that he left behind," he said. "It's been pretty useful."

"So all of that was a simple trick?"

"Yes and the Witch can't understand simple tricks." He turned and looked at the fading speck in the distance. "Everything must be a conspiracy with her."

Dorothy dusted herself off and started to head back inside the house.

"Come on," she said, limping up the steps, "I think there might be a cup or two they didn't break. I can make us some tea."

The Scarecrow raised an eyebrow. "Tea. I do believe Dorothy you have gotten _old_. The last time I saw you were still drinking hot chocolate."

Dorothy gave him a hard look.

"And I think I liked you better without a brain."

The Scarecrow chuckled and they went inside.


	4. Interlude:Rain

The Witch had never had a pet. Her father would not allow it, for fear it would trample her mother's precious vegetable garden. When her sister had left the house for good, flying off the roof into the dawn for the last time, she had promised to bring back a pet for the Witch. However, as the number of hours needed for her witching business in the East to succeed never did let up until freak tornado crashed landed on her, the Wicked Witch of the East never fulfilled her promise.

Flying over the barren fields of Kansas, the Witch watched the head monkey wrestle with the dog Toto, old but considerably stronger than many would think. The Witch lowered herself on her hickory broom (a fine specimen of wood) and descended to the weighted monkey. Toto quieted down as the Witch grunted and stuck out her chin, indicating the brute give her the dog. The monkey practically dumped Toto into her arms and flew too quickly to rejoin the rest of the pack. With one swift motion, the Witch thrust Toto under one arm and flew onwards. Thunderclouds rang summer warnings above her head and she urged the broom forward. Toto growled at her as she squeezed him tighter. An outcropping of trees presented itself on the horizon, and might have been the only shelter for miles.

Thought resurrection had given her new life and a new face, she had little idea how many of her past abnormalities remained. It was best to stay with old habits then to test them. She dove for the trees as rain droplets begun to dust her wide brim hat. Rain may not be her enemy now, but she would rather not drip into ashes on the way down west for being so bold. The Witch grounded her heels into lifeless grass as they reached the trees. Her heels clicked over a few stones, and dirt-dusted pinecones flew past her head as she came to a stop. Her sister would have snickered at her forceful landing. The Witch never let go of Toto until her unruly, large umbrella was staked firm into the hard ground. She put Toto down after settling her broom under the largest pine tree, and sat down underneath her umbrella Indian-style in the dead pine needles. Coarse, heavy rain poured from the sky, thunder welcoming it humbly.

Watching the rain, her hands curling lazily in Toto's long hair as he waited for the rain to cease before sprinting off on his many attempts of escape, the Witch thought of a new venture. In the West, where the sun led on to darkness and the wild pock-marked moon. Dorothy could wait a while longer. Perhaps she would even come hunting for Toto. The West would guide her endeavor, as it always had, shining deathless rays into her tin bowls, bleeding Glinda dry under purple sunsets, laughing with her as she arose from her little grave under woodpile behind her late father's house. The Witch let her hand latch onto Toto's collar and smiled, the West had always been her dearest friend, and it would grant her one last request. After all, even under this dull, drab sky, hadn't she given it the West all she had?


	5. Emerald

The Scarecrow sat down in Dorothy's living room in a little chair by the window, far from the fireplace, though it was still out. The Scarecrow was sopping wet from the milk and water and juice thrown at him by the wretched monkeys. Dorothy went upstairs, came back down with several fresh towels, and put on a kettle for tea.

"How did you get here?" Dorothy asked, sitting down and gratefully propping her feet up on a little stool. She wished she had Toto to pet on her lap, but put the thought out of her mind for the moment.

"Not sure really," said the Scarecrow, wiping his face and hands with a towel. "One second I was chasing Toto down the road, and the next I was here. Rather disorienting."

"I would think so," said Dorothy.

She was staring at him rudely. The Scarecrow pretended not to notice, however, and continued to use the towel to soak up the moisture bleeding through his straw body and into the chair.

"How is it that you've lived so long?"

The Scarecrow raised his eyebrows at her. "Well," he said indignantly "for one thing straw always lasts the longest because no one _expects_ it to. And I've been stuffed more than several times since you were last in the Emerald City."

"I'm sorry," said Dorothy, "I just didn't expect you to come marching up to my house when—"

"When the Tin Man could have come, or the Lion?" the Scarecrow interrupted. "Maybe they would have lived longer if they weren't so confident in their abilities…since the wizard gave them fake courage."

"They're dead?"

"Yes." The Scarecrow put down the towel neatly on the floor and picked up the fresher one. "They died in the fire that burnt the Emerald City to the ground."

Dorothy felt her heart sink and fought back tears forming as she thought of her friends burning, all of the citizens of city drowning in a jeweled oven. When she met the Scarecrow's gaze, she was ashamed. She could see how much he had loved his dear friends, how much he had suffered watching the city burn, and how much he still hurt.

"Scarecrow, I'm so sorry." She said gently, leaning forward putting her glittery feet on the floor again.

"It's alright." he said softly, brushing drops of juice and milk that had gotten caught in his hat. "No one expected it. She never gave a warning. A brush fire started in one of the gardens and then the spell fire spread. We could not do anything, except flee. I fled with as many of the children as possible, while Lion and the Tin Man stayed behind a little longer. Nothing helped, every time we threw water at the blaze, it sparked more heat. _She_thought I was dead, I think, until today. She seemed surprised that I was still kicking."

"Yes, I think you put her straight for the first time in while," said Dorothy.

The Scarecrow seemed distant and distraught since mentioning the obvious fact that he was made of straw. Dorothy wished there was something to say to him, to make it a bit better, but there was nothing. She had lived a rather dull life since coming back to Kansas, thanks to the shoes. The kettle whistled high and clear in the kitchen and Dorothy hopped up to fetch tea.

When Dorothy returned with two cups of strong tea, she found the Scarecrow staring down at the fireplace, lit and crackling. He stood by the mantle, unafraid. Dorothy swallowed and sat down, gesturing at the tea on the coffee table.

The Scarecrow turned and slumped into his chair, taking his tea with a wry smile.

"I needed this, thank you." He said, taking a sip. After drinking a little more, he tilted his head back and rested his head, looking more tired and old than Dorothy had ever remembered.

"I think she meant for _me_ to die in that fire," he said in almost a whisper. "I almost did. My legs caught on fire as I fled. I've never been so scared."

Dorothy touched his arm. "You are safe now."

The Scarecrow closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I sure hope so."

"Those, however," he said turning his head to look at Dorothy fully and point at her shoes. "Those are the most painful looking things I have ever seen."

Dorothy laughed breathlessly. She would not admit it, but her feet hurt more than they ever did.

"You have not ever been able to get them off?" asked the Scarecrow.

Dorothy shook her head sadly.

"Dorothy," he started, then paused, "you have lived with those slippers on your feet for decades. You should not be limping around in someone's wonderful idea of a good curse. Haven't you tried anything to get them off?"

"Everything," Dorothy said.

The Scarecrow turned back to the fire.

"Have you tried burning them off?"

"Do you think that would work?"

The Scarecrow chuckled mirthlessly.

"You are desperate," he said.

"You would be too, if you were me," Dorothy replied bitterly.

They sat in silence for a long moment, watching the flames lick the inner brick walls of the fireplace, then the Scarecrow spoke again.

"Have you ever seen the Wizard?"

"Not ever."

"He always did like to run away from his subjects."

"I'm not one of his subjects."

"You are a byproduct of his idea to get rid of the Witch of the East," said the Scarecrow, putting down his teacup with a solid clank.

"The tornado was his idea?"

"Oh yes."

"I hate him."

"Don't we all," said the Scarecrow more quietly, "but then I would not have met you."

"I am glad I met you. It's just—"

"He ruined your life didn't he?"

Dorothy hesitated. All this time she had blamed the Witch for her problems, for the curse, for the rejection and pain she felt, but now she began to see in her mind's eye a picture of her life, unfinished, unblemished by the horrors of OZ, untouched by its so-called Wizard. Perhaps the Wizard was to blame, partly, but her inaction had always been her own. The Wizard might be a dunce and blackheart but her life had always guided by her own choices.

"Maybe," she said, reluctantly. "Some of it was my fault too."

The Scarecrow stood up, putting his hands in his pockets. "I say we find him,' he said. "Perhaps he knows something about the shoes."

"Do I have to walk there?" Dorothy asked, dismayed.

The Scarecrow paused.

"Only if you want to walk 300 miles," he said finally, "through the thunderstorm."

Dorothy stood up, heading for the stairs to her bedroom to pack.

"I'll drive," she said.

* * *

**A/N:** Will Dorothy find the answers to her curse? Will she get Toto back? And is the Scarecrow really telling her everything about the Fire? (ooooh)

Find out on Monday with the next installment of Twisted.


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